On Sunday, 130 Venezuelan nationals returned home from Argentina via Plan Vuelta a la Patria, an initiative of the Bolivarian Government allowing thousands of Venezuelans to return amid the COVID-19 pandemic despite the illegal blockade imposed by the United States and its allies in the region against the South American country.
By following strict biosecurity measures, the Venezuelan nationals arrived at the Simón Bolívar International Airport on an Estelar flight that took off from the Ezeiza International Airport, Argentina.
Since Plan Vuelta a la Patria was launched, as instructed by President Nicolás Maduro, a total of 20,453 Venezuelans have returned from Argentina (684), Brazil (7,285), Chile (1,617), Colombia (764), Cuba (130), Ecuador (3,421), Panama (310), Peru (4,661), the Dominican Republic (535), Uruguay (143), Mexico (119), Martinique (8), Bonaire (6), Italy (404), Spain (329) and Belarus (37).
Amid the COVID-19 global emergency, thousands of people have returned to Venezuela, and in the face of the lack of interest of other countries’ authorities in the region to coordinate actions with Venezuela to guarantee the safe return of Venezuelans, many of them have been forced to use illegal crossings and resorted to criminal groups operating on different borders, especially on the Colombia-Ecuador border.
However, despite the difficulties caused by the negative economic impact of U.S. sanctions, the Venezuelan Government is undertaking sovereign operations to safeguard the country’s territory and keep its borders open, following the sanitary protocols recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), to receive Venezuelan nationals returning.
Plan Vuelta a la Patria establishes an airlift and land bridges for the voluntary return of all those migrants and their families lacking resources to return, and incorporates them all into the country’s social programs.